This disclosure pertains to a method and system for providing a centralized interface to an integrated work queue of tasks (e.g., action items) where each task could have originated on a different and potentially remote system. More particularly, but not by way of limitation, this disclosure relates to a Hub (centralized system) and Spoke (remote system) integration of service tasks wherein each service task may further be automatically enabled for processing (i.e., performance of the task) in the context and environment of the originating Spoke system.
Today's enterprise computing environments comprise a plurality of techniques to support end users. Additionally, programmable control devices located at a personal residence often require technical support. Implementations of “trouble ticket” or customer support capabilities can be tailored for a particular vendor or environment. Typical trouble shooting support employees are confined to a particular set of support capabilities or environments they can support.
As the need for customer support has increasingly been “outsourced” to service providers, prior art techniques of providing support to disparate technologies and environments have caused an unneeded segmentation of support staff. Additionally, outsourcing implementations commonly cross countries and different countries have substantially different rules about transmission and storage of data. In particular, different countries have substantially different data privacy laws, so copying complete data records (or even persistent storage of data) to provide an efficient support mechanism may not conform to the different governmental laws and regulations. Additionally, corporate policy may dictate that certain information may not be copied and stored at an “outsourcing” location. Because of these concerns, complete replication of data or federation of trouble support databases may not be a viable solution.
Additionally, prior art techniques are typically limited to a single environment or potentially a small number of support environments because support engineers are confined by the capabilities of their support infrastructure. Solutions to these and other problems are described below to allow a support engineer's support infrastructure to dynamically adapt, based on the infrastructure and technology in use at the supported environment, as opposed to being limited by the supporting environment.